


Homemakers

by Letterblade



Category: DRAMAtical Murder - All Media Types
Genre: Family Feels, M/M, Multi, everyone worries about being useful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-16
Updated: 2015-12-16
Packaged: 2018-05-07 00:16:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5436101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Letterblade/pseuds/Letterblade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five men had no families. One always had.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Homemakers

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place in a very handwavey polyblob/shared-household wish fulfillment sort of universe. Very spontaneous rumination about family and loss and so forth.

_He had no family._

_At least no parents. That’s what Koujaku keeps telling him. That they’d sacrificed their right to be his parents when they’d locked that door behind them. He isn’t sure what he thinks of that—it seems harsh, it seems crazy—but sometimes it makes him feel a little stronger. He wanted to prove he could do it right this time. That was all. Right?_

_He had no family. Ceiling father. Four-walls mother. Computer brother. Finally, finally he can reach through the screen, find his real brother. Some crazy voice in the back of his head says to take Theo and run. But then, when he was a child…_

_He had no family._

* * *

Noiz likes it when he gets home from work just when dinner’s ready. Clear’s flitting about almost too fast to be believable, but well, everyone knows what he is, everyone’s fine with it, why should he? Ren’s setting the table with solemn eagerness. Aoba comes up to kiss him hello and take Noiz's jacket—a little slow, a little pink-faced, because he’s Aoba and he can never forget, every time, what this looks like, but he likes it. Hangs it up just so, rests his forehead against his, and loosens Noiz’s tie for him with a murmur of _welcome home._

Koujaku’s napping on the couch, so he doesn’t get to complain, and Noiz gets to bend low and _whisper get up for dinner or I’m getting out the sharpies, old man_.

Noiz stays up late with six windows open on his coil, everything from work to play to the disbursement of Toue’s remaining resources running at once. Sleep is for the weak. Mink stays up not quite as late, reading, and they both want quiet, so they find it back-to-back, until Mink grumbles that he should sleep and becomes an even better pillow.

* * *

_He had no family._

_He used to think he did, of course. That Grandfather would be enough, forever. And meeting Aoba-san’s Grandmother, and hearing about Aoba-san’s parents, had been a balm for that slow ache, the ache he didn’t want to admit to. He’d read a lot of books right around then. Humans so drawn to kinship, even when that hurt them. But also so capable of forming bonds that close with others, no blood relation at all. Deciding to be family. He can do that too, can’t he?_

_Except kinship—isn’t just about blood, for him, isn’t it? He is the only one of his kind. He could not give the Alphas quarter, no. No matter how much their cruelty grieved him, their destruction grieved him as well. But now…now he talks to Mink-san, some, late at night. What does it mean, to be what you are, and to be the only one left? Mink-san says that only he can decide that. Which is, of course, true._

_He had no family._

* * *

Clear does his best for all of them. He loves Aoba-san, of course, and he does not yet know whether he loves anyone else in the same way, but they are all precious to him. So precious that he’s decided it doesn’t matter, that he must simply act on those feelings, and care for them and make them happy, because anything else would be foolish.

He looks all over the internet for recipes, tests them over and over with tireless energy until they’re perfect. Mink-san likes the katsu curry, Koujaku-san likes the sausage, Noiz-san likes the frybread. Aoba-san likes everything. Ren-san eats it all with wide-open eyes like each bite is still the first.

He keeps the house pretty and clean, and Aoba-san and Ren-san help a little guiltily, and Mink-san helps with a slow tirelessness that almost rivals Clear’s. Mink-san chooses the plants, and Clear finds sparkling jars for them, until a tier of miniature greenhouses takes up all one wall. Noiz-san does none of it, but he bought the house, of course, and Clear feels no fatigue, no resentment; they are happy.

Koujaku-san catches Clear by the shoulder one afternoon and says _hey, come on, let’s go to the bath and relax for a bit, you’ve more than earned it._ Koujaku-san rubs soap down his back and spoils him, and it’s all new, and Clear pants a little as he melts into it without even realizing it. _Let me make you happy, huh?_

* * *

_He had no family._

_He has survived that for years, of course, but it is different now. He still goes home, of course, visiting for weeks or even months at a time. Sometimes he brings nobody, and it feels terribly empty. Sometimes he brings somebody, and they feel out of place. He has gotten spoiled, perhaps, by letting himself get close to people again._

_He considered keeping the pipe. Keeping them with him, as he chose to tear up his roots and spend most of his time on this cold wet island, by choice now, but nowhere closer to home. But he had discharged his oath. And they deserved to rest. He will rejoin them one day. In the meantime, there are those who wish him to live. The thought is like a thickly beaded cloak about his shoulders, heavy, but warm._

_He had no family._

* * *

Mink prefers to do what he chooses to do for them in silence, and let them come to him. It is comfortable. It feels right, given that he was once cruel. He does admit to himself, with effort, that he doesn’t know how to do anything else anymore, but that is not the only reason. He tidies, grows things, makes small ornaments and gifts. He makes sure the house will keep running if Midorijima’s political instability knocks them off the grid. He trusts, with effort, that if they do not want him, they will say so.

They come to him. All of them. Aoba he expected, somewhat, though he doubts the wonder and gratitude will ever fade. But then he finds himself boiling down scents for Koujaku, showing him how to dash vinegar over his hair for the shine. Gently settling an arm around Clear’s shoulders as he leans against his chest and asks child-questions, good and true questions that very few ever ask, about the very depths of souls. Working with Noiz to get the house generator up and running, working with Ren to build a garden shed—he’s methodical, conscientious, determined to strengthen his new body, and it works well.

_How do you do it? How are you just—a rock, all the time?_ It is late. Noiz is tired, and upset by something he won’t explain, and burrowing against his chest. _I want to be that. For Aoba. How?_

Mink doesn’t know how to answer. He does what he does. He didn’t know that was what he’d become.

* * *

_He had no family._

_He had Aoba. His world. Aoba who he was born from, Aoba who he served when he did not even know his own self. But Aoba was something bigger than family, stranger than family, one man._

_It would be presumptuous, Ren believes, to consider Tae-san family. Perhaps not, if he ever returned, Nine, but even then. Nine had known him as Aoba’s Restraint. And he is. Not Aoba._

_Individuation is loneliness. Until he turns one step and finds Aoba in his arms. Were it not for that, he does not know if he could exist._

_He had no family._

* * *

Ren has realized, living like this, with all of them, how odd he really is. How different. Everyone else has been shaped by years of their independent lives. By those who have touched them. By the choices they’ve made. Even Clear, more artificial than Ren in some ways, with the key lock in his mind all those years—even Clear had a life of his own.

Ren has been a piece of somebody else’s soul. Trotting at somebody else’s heels. He loves Aoba, bears no resentment for his origins–truly, how could he? But he is a naked seed of life, untouched by humanity or identity. He wants to be himself. He does not know how. He feels–alien. Struggles to find ways to grow.

The rest swirl around him, motion and light and color, chatter and skill. Noiz’s hands flying over his holographic keyboards, Noiz’s knife-smug smile as he brings home the bacon and Aoba loosens his tie. The warmth in Koujaku’s voice and hands, the ornaments and little trees he brings from his old apartment, luxurious and bright. Clear’s joy, Clear’s excitement, Clear’s energy as he cooks dish after dish and sings solace late at night. Mink’s knowledge of everything from rendering his own soap to weaving with sinew to building a house. And Aoba, always and forever Aoba.

Ren apprentices himself to the skill of life, with all the others as his masters, and works until he falls exhausted into Koujaku’s lap and feels the warmth of fingertips running through his hair, and hopes it is enough.

* * *

_He had no family._

_He knew why. He could never forget why. Aoba’s scrap had been a silver knife cutting him free, but never of the memories. As if some force had come down from on high and given him permission to breathe, but that was all._

_Breathing still hurts sometimes._

_He often wakes in the night, shaking in a cold sweat, and watches Aoba’s back rise and fall with desperate gratitude. Sometimes he’ll have a smoke with Mink if he’s up, sometimes Noiz will use him as a footrest, sometimes Clear will take him for adventures in the moon-dark streets. Aoba and Ren sleep like peaceful logs, somehow, even after their own problems, and he’d never disturb them. He isn’t sure he deserves any of this._

_He had no family._

* * *

Koujaku isn’t quite sure what he’s doing here sometimes.

Not that he doesn’t like them, of course. He hadn’t _expected_ to like them, at first—aside from Aoba, naturally, and Ren’s sort of grandfathered in on account of Ren—but it’s not like most of them had either. One thing after another had happened, and it’s hard to explain to anybody, even himself, but here he is. Mostly he just sort of…feels extraneous. The fighting’s done. He’s useless for cooking, even if Clear didn’t have that covered and then some, and he swears he’s not lazy, but everyone else gets to the chores before he does. Well, except Noiz, but Noiz is bringing in lots of money and godawfully smug about it.

He pampers Aoba as much as Aoba lets him, of course, but that isn’t exactly. Useful. He runs the red ends of Mink’s hair through his fingers, silky and free now—to his considerable envy—and learns at some point that Noiz’s close-cropped mess is soft as bunny fur, and is perfectly aware that he’s being rather foolish and not even a six-man household needs a dedicated hairdresser. Even if Ren’s is starting to get unacceptably shaggy. Well. Mostly he just doesn’t know what he’s doing with his life anymore, now that he’s not playing around with girls. How had that become a purpose? A reason to be?

Aoba fits into his arms, lithe and slim, and butts their cheeks together, and tickles him. Koujaku laughs until he chokes, keeps breathing.

He finds Ren out in the garden one day. He’s been working on something with Mink—he seems to like building things, making things, or possibly just getting corners perfectly square and getting his new hands to obey him. But now he’s sitting amongst a pile of half-planed boards, right arm curled across his chest, shaking a little. His shoulder spasmed, Koujaku realizes quickly enough, and he crouches beside him, worried. _Hey. Stretch it out like this, okay?_

Ren apologizes, over and over, and looks up at him with urgent, shameful relief and gratitude as his jumping muscles ease out under Koujaku’s hands, and suddenly Koujaku recognizes the look in his eyes like he’d seen it in a mirror. Realizes he’s seen it on Noiz. Clear. Maybe even Mink, somewhere under that craggy stoicism. Aoba, most absurdly of all.

Koujaku bundles Ren to his chest, even as he protests vaguely in confusion. _Hey, Ren, it’s okay. We can all take care of each other, yeah?_

Everybody’s trying so hard. Everybody’s worrying so much. Maybe—maybe Koujaku isn’t alone, right?

* * *

Aoba pulls his sleeping shirt of his head, looks at the heap of bodies and sheets and pillows in the dark, and for the millionth time, wonders how he could possibly have earned this.

Clear kisses him good-night—they’d been up late, Clear still never sleeps—and Aoba slowly topples sideways as Noiz, still fast asleep, sneaks a hand around his leg. Koujaku tosses, whimpers, spoons Aoba and shakes in his sleep. Mink’s a slab in the corner, but his warmth spreads, and Aoba reaches out a hand to him, flops. Ren still sleeps in a ball, but the ball rolls onto Aoba’s feet, on instinct. Clear watches like a guardian angel, bright in the darkness, humming softly.

It’s embarrassing, how this all fell out. So embarrassing. But—good.

Aoba has always had a family.

Aoba will always have a family.


End file.
